Category: general life updates

getting to know me!

date: 1106932035

mood:
listening to:

i’m boring. :)

1. What Time Is It: 11:51am

2. Name As It Appears On Birth Certificate: Olga S*n*k**v [to avoid google indexing]

3. Nicknames: err, olya. some people rarely switch to olenka and my dad, my mom and and my aunt call me lyagushonok, and ol’ka. my mom calls me ol’gushonol (which is i guess a mix). the rest of the world says olga, bastards. :)

4. Piercing: 0. *shudder*

5. Most Recent Movie You’ve Seen In Theater: Ocean’s Twelve

6. Eye Color: blue (grey? one of my friends claims its green)

7. Hair Color: blonde

8. Place Of Birth: Voronezh, Russia

9. Ever Been To Africa: nope

10. Ever Been Toilet Papering: nope

11. Love Someone So Much It Made You Cry: yup

12. Been In A Car Accident: nope

13. Croutons Or Bacon Bits: not right now, usually both

14. Favorite Day Of The Week: all of them

15. Favorite Night To Go Out On: saturday (friday i’m too tired from school)

16. Favorite Flowers: all of them. <3 flowers. most favourites are elegant, simple, big, minimalistic. 17. Favorite Sport To Watch: aerobics, figureskating, hockey, soccer, tennis, skiing, snowboarding, extreme sports 18. Favorite Drink: green tea 19. Favorite Ice Cream: russian vanilla 20. Disney Or Warner Brothers: pixar! 21. Favorite Fast Food Restaurant: aah, yuck. probably BK, but generally no. 22. What Color Is Your Bedroom Carpet: no carpet, wooden floors 23. How Many Times Did You Fail Your Driver's Test: 0 24. Before This One, From Who Did You Get Your Last E-Mail: a friend from univ 25. Which Store Would You Choose To Max Out Your Credit Card: depending in the limit ;) <100, chapters, <1000, ikea, <10000, henrys 26. What Do You Do Most Often When You Are Bored: slashdot, editing photos 27. Bedtime: after 12am, usually 1-2am 28. Who Will Respond The Quickest: err, respond to my blog? =p diny probably ;) keeping with the trend so far... 29. Who Is The Person That'll See This That Is Least Likely To Respond: my parents (yup, they're aware of this blog!) 30. Who Are You Most Curious About Their Responses To This Questionnaire? *skratches head* 31. Favorite Tv Shows: family guy, futurama 32. Last Person You Went To Dinner With: scarf 33. Ford Or Chevy: ford, specifically aston martin (yeah, i got taste) http://www.spiceisle…artin%20Venquish.jpg

34. What Are You Listening To Right Now: guns n’ roses, take me down to paradise city

35. What Is Your Favorite Color:

36. Lake, Ocean Or River: any

37. How Many Tattoos Do You Have: none

38. Democrat Or Republican: democrat , i think (liberal?)

39. Time You Finished Answering This: 11:59am

here it goes.

date: 1096315002

mood:
listening to:

hey hey.
update for today will be short. i tis 10 to 10pm, i stlil have a 30 minute walk home, and there really isn’t anything funny to update.

quotes from today’s chinese class:

“olya, do you drink”
“drink… *confused face* drink? yes, drink”
“so, drinkdrinkdrink – i take it you drink a lot?”

(in chinese to say yes to a question you use the verb)

*in next door room very loud noise, french movie or something*
*he walks up to the door to the next room and VERY loudly goes*
“AS I WAS SAYING, THE PRONOUNCIATION OF THIS CHARACTER IS LI, YES, LI

*practicing numbers – from 1 to 10*
he says the number in chinese or english and you say it in the other one. we only did 1,2,3 at this point:
him – person
yi – one
san – three
two – er
one – yi
er – two
three – san
one – yi
yi – one
er – two
two – er
san – three
three thousnd six hundred and five – *?@$#@*

also, practicing numbers: he is asking people which floor their bed is on (presumably won’t be more than 3, considering the architecture in europe – my guesthouse is the tallest building all around, but he doesn’t know that!) – asks first girl, second girl.. yi, er, er, asks me..

i look at him, and raise 5 fingers
he just grabs his head and sits down “aah this is impossible”

practicing pronounciation of new words:
“dutch laugh at chinese and say that they don’t have the sound R! well, yes, we DO have that sound, it is just it is pronounced differently – now if you look at symbol “er” …”

i just think its funny cause, its not r if you pronounce it differently.

…

i got nothing.

paris, day 1, september 02

date: 1094545445

mood:
listening to:

Trip to Paris
(typed from handwritten notes)

Since I am not taking laptop, the small handy booklet shall be my diary.

Before leaving the computers at UCM, I copied “iParis” from internet, to computer in UCM, to USB key generously provided by Ina, to laptop, and then I beamed it to palm. (All that could have been so much simpler if I just had internet on the laptop and installed the palm program! argh). I am so thankful I did that! It has a map of all Paris metro lines, with corresponding information about each station, which lines intersect at it, and a visual display of the location on the map.
I wil arrive at Gare Nord, via the pricey Thalys train, to quote Rick. Gare Nord est.. I mean, is, (for the unknowing: ‘est’ is ‘is’ in french) on line 5. My subway to hosten is on line 9. So using the program I calculaed the route! It has automatic route calculation, but there are only 6 free ones, so I will save them in case I will need them for an emergency.
I am technically in Belgim now. So far, the trip was fantastaic. At Liege, I got a croissant and a coffee. Even coffee at train stations, is so so nice, that even I can drink it. canadian coffee doesn’t even stand a chance!

I think after Brussles, to which we only arrive in 20 minutes – err, okay, maybe we’re arriving right now… Anyway, I shall go to sleep soon.
I am looking at Rick’s map of Paris. Paris overview. And it is incredible, how walkable it is. I am glad I shall already have a place to stay, and the rest will be fine. If my backpack is too heavy I can through out some of it (soap, toothpast), and wear the rest. [side note: I did not expect the security in the hostel to be good enough for me to leave stuff there!] (3 shirts might be a bit weird but … who cares.) [side note: at this point I had no idea what parisian weather is like, haha].
Anyway, I believe we are now in Brussles, I moved to the window since my neighbour left, and shall look asleep and hope to be left alone. Au revoir!

12:00am
wow. It is now exactly 6pm in Canada, and here it is officially thursday.
Holy shit, tea here is SO expensive! 4 euros! I am jumping between the wish to not do anything b/c even basic stuff is so expensive, and the wish to just forget about the conversion to CAD, and just spend money as I feel necessary.
The tea is lovely though. PERFECTLY sized mug, a fantastic tea bag (its like… special material teabag), and a small kettle with enough water for 2 perfectly sized cups. Considering I am not in the centre though – I just went to a place 2 minutes away from the hotel – it is likely as ridiculously priced in the center.

After arriving into Paris (I glimpsed upon the Eiffel Tower when the train was coming – BTW the speed of the train must have been like 300km/h, it was insanely fast, we passed with ease each and single car on the highway next to us) I went to the hostel, which was seriously too big for me.
I have a room with 2 twin sized beds, and I am alone there. Next time I must bring someone along.

I called dad and left msgs on his work machine, and then I called Luke and agreed to meet in an hour.

[at this point I switched to point form notes because it was late, i was tired, and i wanted to plan what i will be doing tomorrow. so i will retype my impressions from the point form notes]

The metro
The metro is absolutely humongous. I mean, it isn’t shocking, I knew it would be huge, but it is extremely cool to have all these amazing places to go to, and each has a subway station right nearby.
The walkways between the stations (when you transfer from line to line) are tiny. The constrast is like Paris – huge boulevards and tiny streets. Huge metro and tiny walkways.

The Louvre jumped out at me. Luke and I were walking towards the Eiffel tower (I think), and suddenly I see a building, and it says Palace Royal, and Luke says “oh, you definetly know this place”, and for some reason I kept thinking “the palace is versailles” and forgot that it is Louvre as well! So we cross the street, and he tells me it is louvre. That would make it the first thing that I have seen in Paris out of all the famous stuff. I was so surprised, that I had tears, like, I wasn’t crying, but I had many tears in my eyes, because it was just… well, something I expected forever, and suddenly it was here.
We walked around a bit, and the pyramids are fantastic. It was a pleasure to finally see some famous architecture that I studied in art oac, I.M.Pei. I have read so much about the controversy of the pyramids, so it was awesome to finally see them in real life.

Afte rwalking around Louvre (outside) for a bit, we continued to Champes d’Elysees, but it began to RAIN HARD. Of course when I was looking outside it was prefectly sunny so now I didn’t have a jacket, just a little shirt (the triped with white and beige). The street and the Arc looked fantastic, because it was already getting dark, and all the cars had their lights on, so it was extremely pretty. But also very wet. We ran for cover, found some sort of place to eat. Ate, it was too expensive and not that fanstastic. But I was tired, and hungry, so it was good for the time being.

After dinner I insisited that I go to see the Eiffel tower, because I always wanted to see it and I am my first day in Paris and still haven’t seen it.
the epxerience as fantastic. After coming out of the subway, I kept running around, becaues the tower was upposed to be like, right there. So the exit goes into an intersection of 4 streets, and I looked each and every way but I couldn’t find it. So Luke catches up to me, and we figure out which way to go. We follow one of the streets, and suddenly as we round hte corner, the Eiffel Tower, is right there. It was dark, and hte tower was lit up in tiny lights, and it just jumed out, and it was absoutely amazing, it just appeared in front of me. I took a lot of photographs, but I was really missing a tripod. It was absolutely breathtaking, though.

After that, I went home, got tea and wrote this, called home, and then went to sleep.

Next entry will come soon, I have them written, however I have to leave to class and to register for internet! It is 3:05, I shall dress and bike, so I will be there at 3:30, and class is at 4, so I have time.

saved by the bell

date: 1092916360

mood: sleepy /excited
listening to:

okaay so i was gonna write an entry last night but i had to do some sleeping and i got carried away.

i ended up not getting a haircut yesterday cause the washing thing for hair broke (in hairdresser’s place), and she can’t cut my hair if its dry, and i was gonna get highlights and we’d need water, so i couldn’t wash and come.

so its moved to sunday morning.

anyway.

i’m gonna enterntain you by juggling these coffee cups… but my mom would kill me if i broke them, so instead i’ll share the great news of today.

i woke up early (6:40), reluctantly climbed out of bed, took a shower and dried my hair. (7:00) usually i have like 20 minutes to dress before my parents wake up and my mom drops me and dad off at the subway.
but my mom was already up
(exciting, eh?)
anyway, point is my mom was leaving early and my dad tagged along, but since its my last week and i don’t really have anything to do – 2 days left – i stayed home.

this is the first time in at least 4 months when i have the house all to myself in the morning. i drank tea, ate two great sandwiches with cream cheese. and watching saved by the bell. teehee.

uhm, this was perhaps the most pointless entry evah. and i gotta go actually dress. but this lying down watching tv sufing and being all alone was AWESOME!

Update: my package is coming here!!! UPS is AWESOME. it was moving over night (i can see with the tracking number) and its now in concord:
http://ca.maps.yahoo…C+ontario&country=ca
it came there at 6:37am
omgomg!
damnit
i wish it coul dbe delivered before i left!

four months

date: 1086741607

mood: shaking
listening to:nin – down in it

this is so much stress
the week just started, and i came home physically shaking… i watched 4 episodes of sex and the city with mom, and now its down to a soft blur, but damn…

stress

of course i’d rather have this stress than nothing, but i’m so tired, and i feel that when i come home i just don’t have the energy to deal with anyone or anything – i just wanna come home and hide, and not have conflicts and not talk even.

its hard to explain, because i’m not the most active person online lately, but i don’t usually freak out at the thought of talking on irc.

i’m so tired that i can’t even clean my room or redesign the blog.

i couldn’t resist

date: 1081230899

mood: sleepy
listening to:scooter – jigga jigga club mix (its nice)

i’m still functioning on 3 hours of sleep!

i couldn’t resist taking hesi’s test.

i am SO not posting the results…